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Can the Eastern Catholic Churches offer us anything?
Dear Friends,
Today is one of those days where it is a little invigorating again to wake up as a Catholic in Australia. The news overnight from St Mary's Parish in Brisbane is hopefilling and exciting. Here we have an archbishop, a priest and a community seeking to work together in a cooperative way each respecting the dignity and responsibilities of the other and seeking to formulate a response that builds our Church in Australia rather than diminish it. Congratulations to all involved. You provide a sense of hope and vigour far beyond your own backyard.
We also have a lead commentary on Catholica today that I hope will turn out to be extremely hopefilling and invigorating. It is probably the most detailed and lengthy commentary we have published at over 6,000 words and I will be publishing it progressively over the next few hours. Part I is already on line and that should give you a good taste for the full article.
In summary what it's about is a lengthy argument from Andrew Kania that we have much to learn from the Eastern Churches. The article is not new but this is the first time we have published it on Catholica. I suspect Andrew is correct in what he writes although I have to confess that in my dealings with Eastern Rite Catholics — which is quite limited apart from Andrew — some have been extremely conservative and reactionary. They are people who have not given me the impression that the Eastern Churches have much to teach us at all. Rather they have offered a huge dose of everything that is precisely going wrong in the Western or Latin Church. My views in that regard have been slowly changing and some of the thanks for that I do attribute to Andrew Kania. Check out for yourself what he has to write today and let us know your perspectives. We are publishing the article partly as a prelude to a major article Dr Kania has coming up in this week's The Tablet which explores this territory further. <more> |
